Dharma Library

I arrived at Maenllwyd, in the deepest despair I have ever known - the 'dark night of my soul'. Having been to an Introductory Chan Retreat a few months previously, I had some dim awareness that this was a place where I could safely be, that is, be allowed to be, in that dark night.

And indeed, I was in a place, and with people, who accepted my existence well before I could.

I had spoken to…

Akshobya

Dark light before dawn
no wind and in the silence
a fox barking on the hill;
suddenly in the candle lit room
the cold landscape unfurls
invisible rocks, burrows of badgers
trolling the turf for bulbs and insects
the starlit dome, dusk before dawn
Blue immensity.

Ratnasambhava

Sunrise, far to the SSE
almost at the point of turning
a midwinter sky lined by the tracery of trees,
northern thrushes…

Paper presented at the conference 'The Psychology of Awakening II' at Dartington Hall, October 1998 ⁽¹⁾

Western Buddhism: Problems and Presentations

In recent years a number of cases of individual corruption in sexual and financial matters have been exposed in Buddhist organisations, usually the result of the behaviour or indiscretions of individuals in leadership roles⁽²⁾. Ken Jones' recent…

Pale light after dawn
Low clouds scudding over green fields
Weathervane - SSW

Nine cars
In the yard
Tathagatas

Welsh hills in June
Misty rain
Wet tents

Sunbeams at dusk
Reaching round the corner of the hill
Only this week the sun so far

Cutting the tall grass
goggle eyed frog leaps for safety
Sorry !

Round the temple chanting
Koonyam poussa koon yam poussa
Outside cuckoos calling

Morning mantra
Steadies
M…

On the wall of the dining hall in the Chan Center in Elmhurst, New York, hangs a notice summarising the attitude to be adopted by resident and visiting practitioners. These suggestions seem to provide very sensible guidelines for a life of appropriate relatedness with others, not only within but also outside the meditation hall. So we present them here, slightly edited, for your reflection. They…

Who are you?
You pretend to not know.
Of course you know who you are!
It is you, holding the page
reading the marks on this piece of paper.

It is you, reading my mind
with the sound of your voice.

And who am I?
I am you.
Sharing thought.
E V E R Y T H I N G .

You, in manifestation,
are on the frontier
of your/self.

You will see yourself,
out there,
in the world,
doing so many things.

Make them all…

beyond words
sometimes too numerous
at other times not enough
beyond time
beyond its dynamics,
divisibility
into what was
into what is.
beyond forgetfulness
beyond the danger
of taking the past for the present
illusion for reality.
beyond the mind
feeding on words, concepts,
beyond imagination
pulsating with images, dreams,
beyond emotion, uncertain, fecund
beyond escape,
beyond departure
beyond everything
there is…

for Hughie

High in the hills of Wales
somewhere above Ceredigion
a fenceless gate swings in the wind.

Bold spirit are you?
A rugged glance, good boots or a 4 by 4
and you're away.

among sheep and ravens
cloudwise among crags
bogs and sudden mist

a falling white out
lost in the desert
chilly too.

Coming down a valley no one ever saw before
the dead still sing in the Inn.
Finding a way home not so easy…

Among the glens, bogs and lochans of the western Highlands of Scotland the dividing line between the natural and the supernatural is thin indeed. Beside Loch Shiel

A dagger and a ram's skull
in the summer tanglewood
no birds sing.

That was the explanation why, several years previously, we had camped overnight on the trackless shore too weary to go further, yet each gripped by too much inner terror…

The opening words of the retreat "Where the path stops, you go on into the snow alone" have an enormously powerful effect on me and the combination of the clear Welsh air, the burning incense, the peace, and the clarity of the bell bring tears to my eyes and a lump in my throat so that I am unable to join in the words myself.

The retreat begins, the guest master cheerfully and conscientiously…